Hemlock Grove: A Faceless Name
by Punk Drunk Love
Summary: He stood up straighter and appeared aloof as he took my hand and shook it. His fingers were extraordinarily long and his shake was soft instead of firm like I expected. I was beginning to understand that everything about him was unexpected.


Author's Note: This is a one-shot story inspired by the TV series Hemlock Grove (2013). It plays into the idea that Roman and Peter met under the premise of romance beyond friendship. It was written in the vein of the acoustic version of the song "Through the Glass" by Stone Sour. I don't claim to own any rights to Hemlock Grove. The TV show was created by Brian McGreevy and Lee Shipman, based on the book by McGreevy of the same name.

1:

"_Peter? Peter, you have to hide!" Lynda told me._

_She rushed me through the thin hallway of the latest trailer we called home. I could feel her hands against my shoulder blades. Shoving me. Urgently keeping me away from something._

"_Mom, I-"_

"_Go, Peter! Go, now!" she ordered me._

_I was sent to her room. The furthest place to be in the entire trailer. I could hear the sound of the screen door scraping against the wooden steps just outside. That sound was only made when someone was coming inside. I was only three-years-old, but I was fully aware that I didn't want to see the person stepping through._

"_Hide," Lynda told me, her voice hushed now to almost a whisper._

_I wondered why Nicolae was not there to help us. Where were the others from our camp? They were questions I still pondered to this day._

_I was shoved into a thicket of clothes. I hated the closets most because they were confining and always smelled of mothballs. Mother stopped to give me a soft smile and blew me a kiss, as though she were trying to tell me everything would be alright._

_My instincts told me she was lying._

_Lynda swung the closet doors shut. They were flimsy and I could still see easily through a crack in the middle where the doors didn't quite come together. She left the room and despite a strong desire to follow her, I curled up underneath a pile of Mom's jeans and her favorite leather jacket and tried my best not to breathe._

_Time seemed to pass on forever. When I did have to breathe, I was terrified I would be found. I could hear Mom arguing with someone in the living room. Their voices were deliberately low, like they thought someone could be listening._

_Someone besides me._

_I could easily smell the dominant male who was with her. His scent was a blend of hardworking sweat and exposure to the elements. He was a traveller, like us, but unlike us, he truly had no home. He smelled like he slept on the ground, ate off the land, and didn't bother to clean up by the river._

_Though no one ever told me, I knew this man was my father._

"_Go! You don't need him anymore," Lynda urged him to leave._

_I could hear heavy footfalls as he started for the hallway. I could hear Mom arguing to keep him away. He's going to find me, I'm sure of it. He's going to take me away._

_The Wolf rose up inside of me. He was more keen on self-preservation and far more developed than my three-year-old mind. I felt underneath me until I came upon a trap door leading down to the crawlspace underneath the trailer. I could hear my father coming for me even as I lifted the door and sank down to the earth, below._

_A snake greeted me with a hiss and coil. I quickly crawled away from it. The morning air was cold as ice and it froze through my thin clothes. I could feel the cobwebs as I pushed through them to get out, the intricate webs threatening to stifle my screams and suffocate me with fear and the pain of spider bites._

_I saw an opening and went for it. The color gray greeted me as I looked up but could not find the sun amongst the thick clouds. There were leaves covering the ground and they crunched under my bare feet. I took off into a run, worrying with each step that my father would hear me. The leaves were going to give me away._

_An overgrowth of trees appeared to rescue me. I ran up to it and slid underneath to a place where only I could enter. I was lucky to find that this was not the den of another snake or a badger. I sat on all fours and covered my head, praying that Nicolae would know that I needed him and he would help me have the power to make myself invisible._

"_Peter?! PETER!" I could hear him yelling in the distance._

"_...leave him be! You leave him be!" Mother argued._

_I heard her yelp, then she moaned like she had been hurt. I wanted to save her; pull her into my safe haven so she could be with me. _

"_PETER! PETER!" his voice echoed over and over and over again._

_Then...nothing._

_I dared to glance up at the opening of the den._

_A pair of solid yellow eyes stared back at me._

"Peter? We're almost there," Lynda gently rubbed the back of my neck to wake me.

I slowly opened my eyes as the dream faded away. I glanced around, recognizing the scent of steel and wood; death and decay.

"Hemlock Grove," Lynda nodded with her chin.

It wasn't what I expected. Better looking, for sure. The houses in the distance looked old and conventional but not unappealing. It was like the picture in the back of those colonial era books that showcases the, "Modern Town with A History," look. Those were the kind of books I stole from the library when we needed something to start fires with.

"It's right up ahead," Lynda told me after a long while of driving through forest to reach the next trailer we would call home.

It was a shit-stye. I wasn't exactly sad about it, though. I knew we wouldn't be here, long.

"Go and pick out your room," Lynda said as soon as she stepped out of the car.

I tripped on my way down the ledge from the road and I nearly rolled into a pile of leaves. I quickly gathered myself and let my cat take the lead running into the new trailer. She always was faster than me. No matter what form I took on.

* * *

"Be back by sundown," Lynda told me as I headed out the door.

"I'm just going for a walk," I stopped to give her a sideways stare.

She smiled like she knew I was up to much more than that, though she didn't argue with me and instead went back to working up dinner.

I wandered for a long time, just staring at the factions of forest and the mansion close by that reminded me of a Daddy Warbucks estate. Who the fuck kind of pretensious asshole lived there? Probably some old guy with a smokin' hot 22-year-old wife. I didn't get too close, though I picked up the scent of someone who liked expensive perfume. Probably the smokin' hot wife.

The sky was turning gray and quickly fading to black as I turned off to find a place for myself. I sat down against a tree and remained still for a good while to make sure I was alone before I reached into my pants to take hold of myself.

I liked to masturbate outside because it reminded me most of when I was The Wolf. Most of my teenage sex-crazed hormonal rage was expelled by the transformation and being The Wolf, but there was still enough leftover that taking some time for myself had become a ritual to calm the nerves.

I was careful to never, ever get caught. I did this because sometimes I liked to do other things to myself to get going. Things that most people would think were...unconventional.

It has nothing to do with being kinky or perverted. It has more to do with my sexual preferences. Namely, other guys. I didn't exactly call myself gay, because I had been with a few girls and I could perform to their expectations. I had only been with one man in my life, and I had to leave him just like I left everything, eventually.

God, I missed him. Thinking of him made me feel hot inside. My erection came up quick and I was reaching climax much faster than I anticipated.

Picture him naked. Picture him bending over in front of me. Picture me bending over for him. That's it. That's all I need.

I could smell someone coming even before I had time to really get started. I let go of myself and struggled to stand up straight as I was met in the darkness by a male with strikingly pale white skin. He was tall, almost too tall, with a small smoke stack puff drifting out from somewhere between his lips.

His features were not easy to make out in this light. He appeared non-threatening, almost welcoming as he stopped within a few feet of me and asked in an offbeat, James Dean-type voice, "Are you jerking off in my yard?"

He cocked his head to one side like it amused him to think so. I scoffed and tried to laugh it off, but I knew I was caught. I told him with a shrug, "What, are you here to chase me off or watch?"

The young male let out a chuckle that sounded more like a morose sigh as he answered, "Maybe I'll watch."

He turned his head down and I got the impression he was staring at my crotch. My erection hand't completely gone down, yet, and feeling his eyes on it threatened to make it rise up, again.

"I'm gonna go," I turned on my heel to leave.

"You live in that shit-fuck trailer down there?"

I stopped and turned back to face the young man. He was closer, now, his features more foreseeable and his eyes appearing soft as they gazed at me. He still looked amused as I answered, "Yeah, just moved here."

"...my name's Peter. Rumancek," I reached out my hand to take his without him offering to know my name, first.

He stood up straighter and appeared aloof as he took my hand and shook it. His fingers were extraordinarily long and his shake was soft instead of firm like I expected. I was beginning to understand that everything about him was unexpected.

"Roman. Godfrey," he imitated my introduction with his own.

Godfrey. I had only just moved here, but I was aware that the name was a prestigious one.

He stepped back away from me when we parted shaking hands, his eyes slowly drifting over my frame as though he were making a study out of me. A part of me was instantly attracted to his mysterious and off-hand demeanor, yet an even bigger part of me, including The Wolf, was well aware he was not my type.

"_Upir_," I whispered even before it became clear in my mind.

"What's that?" Godfrey leaned in and cocked his head to one side again, as though he could somehow capture the remnants of the word already spoken.

"I just said, 'Weird,'" I lied, shrugging it off.

Godfrey turned his head upright and I could feel his eyes on me a moment longer before he nodded that he agreed with me. Either he had no idea what he truly was, or he was only playing dumb to confuse me. Despite knowing little about him, something inside told me he liked choosing other, more destructive avenues than playing dumb to hide his true thoughts.

"I really should get going. My mom is waiting for me," I turned away once more to leave.

"You could come up here, sometime. For dinner, I mean. My mom would love that," Godfrey let the last words roll off of his tongue like he was making an inside joke.

"Yeah, maybe I'll take you up on that," I nodded to him.

He seemed amused by the idea. I was beginning to think he didn't have other emotions besides a constant sense of amusement. I pondered what he would look like if he ever saw a dead body. Amusement was all I could picture.

"Let me know next time you jerk off! I'll give you something to smile about!" Godfrey yelled through the woods after I had put some distance between us.

I flushed with embarrassment and glanced around. There was no one outside beyond the two of us, but if someone had been near a window at his house, they would've surely overheard.

"What the fuck?!" I whispered to myself as I picked up the pace.

I had never been so put-off and simultaneously so turned on by someone, before.


End file.
